Cardboard for craniums: how packaging is being used for helmets

This article was taken from the April 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content bysubscribing online. "The design of helmets hasn't changed in 45 years," says designer Anirudha Surabhi. "Whether you pay £20 or £120, you get the same product." Surabhi is CEO of Kranium, a London-based company that creates helmets with honeycomb cardboard.

The idea came in 2010 after he fell off his bicycle and suffered concussion -- despite wearing a standard polystyrene helmet. He claims to have bettered that design. "The honeycomb cells trap air, which acts as a compression membrane," says Surabhi. "The structure is designed to absorb the impact by flexing and crumpling. By crumpling it continues to absorb the impact, as opposed to cracking like polystyrene.

Once polystyrene cracks it stops doing any good." In impact tests, the Kranium liner exerted, on average, only 85Gs, as opposed to 220Gs in standard helmets. The helmets should be on sale this summer. "There is a stigma attached to this being a paper-based product, but when people see that it's far more effective, hopefully we'll change their minds."

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Kranium: the facts

-- The mould cost £250. One for polystyrene would be £12,500

-- The helmet passed the EN 1078 safety test five times in a row

-- The Kranium soaks up four times more impact energy than its rivals

This article was first published in the April 2012 issue of WIRED magazine